Our commitment to you

Sometimes a child or young person is unable to live with their parents. There are many reasons this happens. Some children and young people may have been abused or neglected, others may have complex needs or disabilities, or there may be a family crisis which means that the child or young person's parents are unable to care for them.

Our 'Let's Take Action Group' which represents the voice of children in our care and our care leavers have co-produced the Stockton-on-Tees commitments to all children in our care and care leavers.

These commitments set out how we support you as children in our care and care leavers in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees. We are committed to listening to you, championing you and keeping you safer in everything we do.

This means we will:

ask you for your views and let you know what we have done as a result of them
involve you in decisions that are made about you and your life so we better understand your needs and what makes you happy
make sure you know your rights and entitlements and what support you can expect
support you to feel safer and be able to live your life free from harm and abuse

These are our commitments to you. We will work with people from other organisations in Stockton-on-Tees to help us do this.

A safe and stable home

Our safe and stable home commitments are:

to make sure you live in a safe place where you are well cared for
to check that you are happy and settled and getting good care
when you are an adult and ready to live independently, we will help find you the right home

Positive relationships and belonging

Our positive relationships and belonging commitments are:

to support you to be in contact with the people who matter to you the most, especially family and friends
to help you understand your life story
to support you with your identity including culture, faith, sexuality, disability and gender identity
to help you build positive relationships which will support you when you are an adult

Listening

Our listening commitments to you are:

we ask you for your views and make sure there are lots of ways for you to give them - speaking, writing, drawing - however you choose to
to always take your views into consideration when decisions are being made about you and if we can't do what you have asked, explain why
to listen to your suggestions about how to improve the services that children and young people receive

Opportunities to achieve and progress

Our opportunities to achieve and progress commitments are:

to help you to learn in the right school for you
to support you to feel happy and settled at school so you can do your best
to help you access work and learning opportunities that are right for you
to celebrate your achievements and successes with you - we are proud of you

Good health and wellbeing

Our good health and wellbeing commitments are:

to help you to have good mental and physical health by supporting you to access health care services
to support you to be fit and active by promoting opportunities for you to play, have a hobby and play a sport
to help you have someone to talk to who you trust and who can help with managing feelings and emotions

Ready for independence

Our ready for independence commitments are:

to help you to apply for college, apprenticeships, university or jobs - and help you to decide what is the right path for you
to support you to develop living skills like cooking, washing, ironing and managing your money
to be there for you if you make a mistake and help you get back on track
to be ambitious for you and support you

Good Corporate Parents

As well as our commitments to you we promise that wherever possible we will do as much as we can to make sure you are not disadvantaged as a result of you being in care. We will go the extra mile to try and give you the best support available that will help you achieve your goals in life, feel safe, know that someone is there for you and for you to have a bright future. We will also ask our partners to help us with this.